fun

Why is play so elusive for some grown-ups?  Because we are so
strongly attracted and attached to a profoundly goal-oriented,
work-ethic-driven society.  Like other forms of non-work, play
connotes wastefulness, a stoppage in the way of what needs
to get done.  Yet often what really needs to get done has more
to do with our hearts and spirits and less to do with a deadline
or longstanding project.  Play beckons to us, urging us to live in
the present moment, a moment that becomes more luminous
when we disallow interruptions like work and worry.

Leslie Levine

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They are enlightened who join in this play knowing it as play, for people
suffer only because they take as serious what the gods made for fun.

Alan Watts

The real joy of life is in its play.  Play is anything we do for the
joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion,
or sense of duty.  It is the real living of life with the feeling
of freedom and self-expression.  Play is the business of childhood,
and its continuation in later years is the prolongation of youth.

Walter Rauschenbusch

If I get to pick what I want to do, then it's play. . . if someone
else tells me that I have to do it, then it's work.

Patricia Nourot

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still
differentiate between a time for learning and a time for
play without seeing the vital connection between them.

Leo Buscaglia

To the art of working well a civilized race would
add that art of playing well.

George Santayana

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves,
or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.

Charles Schaefer

The world is your playground.  Why aren't you playing?

Ellie Katz

Play is the beginning of knowledge.

George Dorsey

Play keeps us vital and alive.  It gives us an enthusiasm for
life that is irreplaceable.  Without it, life just doesn't taste good.

Lucia Capocchione

fun

If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun.
When that happens I tell myself just to go out
and play as I did when I was a kid.

Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

Genuine play occurs when you lose sight of yourself and your life for
the moment.  You are totally immersed in whatever physical or creative
activity with no awareness of the passing of time.  You are truly awake
and alive.  For some people, play may be more physical.  For others, it
is a creative outlet for expression.  However, both types of play can
satisfy our basic need for curiosity, exploration, and fun.

Jill Murphy Long

Play is as necessary to the perfect development of a child as sunshine
is to the perfect development of a plant. The childhood that has no
budding and flowering, or only a partial unfolding of its petals, will
have nothing but gnarled and pinched fruitage. The necessity for play
in the very beginning of a child's development is shown by the fact
that the instinct to play is so strong in all young life,
including the entire animal kingdom. . . .
The very fact that the instinct to play, that the love of fun is so
imperious in children, shows a great necessity in their nature
which, if suppressed, will leave a famine in their lives.

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living 

Those who know how to play can easily leap over the adversities of life.
And one who knows how to sing and laugh never brews mischief.

Iglulik Proverb

Imaginative play is a key that opens the door to intuition.

Frances E. Vaughan

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious
learning.  But for children play is serious learning.
Play is really the work of childhood.

Fred Rogers

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A buoyant and full-blooded soul has quick senses and
miscellaneous sympathies:  it changes with the changing
world; and when not too much starved or thwarted by
circumstances, it finds all things vivid and comic.  Life is
free play fundamentally and would like to be free play altogether.

George Santayana

fun   

There is wisdom in knowing how to play, to touch lightly,
uninvolved and uncommitted, on what is pleasurable.

Aelred Graham

Play not only keeps us young but also maintains our perspective
about the relative seriousness of things.  Running is play, for even
if we try hard to do well at it, it is a relief from everyday cares.

Jim Fixx

Play is one of those things--like dreaming--that seems superfluous
but we cannot live without. . . Good play, by nature, is therapeutic. . .
While trauma and threat tend to take away the desire for playfulness,
they intensify the need for it.  To live through uncertain times, we
cannot exist solely in a state of apprehension.

Mark Epstein

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Good work and joyous play go hand in hand.  When play stops,
old age begins.  Play keeps you from taking life too seriously.

George Byron

Many of my clients stopped playing years ago.  They wouldn't dream of doing
anything they'd call "play," except on rare occasions like planned vacations or
jury duty.  They believe that play is inimical to success, that allowing themselves
to play would cause them to lose their competitive edge at work.  This is incredibly
ironic when you consider that the play-intensive nature of our brains is the very
thing that's allowed us to out-compete every other species on earth.  A playful
mind-set allows you to master whatever is in front of you, to form symbiotic
alliances and partnerships, to adapt successfully to any challenging situation,
and above all, to find a sense of fun that makes the whole shebang intrinsically
satisfying.  Play is precisely what you need most to succeed at work.  It will also
immeasurably improve your personal life, but as far as I'm concerned, the main
reason to practice play is that it's extremely, vitally, pivotally good for your career.

Martha Beck
The Joy Diet